NHL Hockey Best Bets for January 8, 2016
Six games in the NHL tonight. Here are our best bets:
BOSTON BRUINS AT NEW JERSEY DEVILS:
Lots of interesting personnel moves throughout the NHL today. Boston has recalled talented young forward David Pasternak from the Providence Bruins of the AHL. The 19 year old is expected to give a dose of much needed potency to the Bruins’ recently moribund offense. Of course, Boston fans being Boston fans are already treating him like Ted Williams on skates with one local media columnist calling him the ‘savior’ of the Bruins’ offense. The Bruins need a kick in the pants at this point–they lost their last two games including the 5-1 rout by Montreal in the Winter Classic. They followed that up with a good effort against the NHL best Washington Capitals but ended up losing 3-2. They’ve lost five of their last six games overall.
New Jersey has won four of seven but there’s a lot of trepidation about what happens next on a team ravaged by injuries. Tonight the Devils will play without forwards Mike Cammalleri (upper body injury), Patrik Elias (right knee), Jacob Josefson (left foot), Tuomo Ruutu (lower body)and Tyler Kennedy (upper body). They’re also down a pair of defensemen–John Moore (lower body) and David Schlemko (lower body). In response, GM Ray Shero made some AHL call ups–defenseman Marc-Andre Gragnani and forwards Jim O’Brien and Paul Thompson will be in the lineup tonight. The plan might be to continue the Bruins’ offensive woes–these three players go 6’3″, 6’3″ and 6’1 respectively.
Even with all of the injuries the Devils play the better defense and have the better goaltending with Cory Schneider.
BET NEW JERSEY DEVILS +110 OVER BOSTON BRUINS
COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS AT CAROLINA HURRICANES:
Both of the players in the biggest trade of the week will be in action with their new teams tonight. In this game, the Jackets will get their first look at defenseman Seth Jones. Jones was acquired from the Nashville Predators in exchange for estranged forward Ryan Johansen. That might not be the last deal that the Jackets’ make before the deadline–highly touted prospect Kerby Rychel wants a trade. The 21 year old has been vague about his reasons but it’s evident that he wants to get out of Ohio.
Maybe Columbus could use Rychel to get some goaltending. They’ve got starting goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and backup Curtis McElhenney on the injured reserve list. That means that Anton Forsberg will be between the pipes tonight and he’s played pretty well in limited action with a record of 1-1-0, a 1.92 goals against average and a 0.946 save percentage. Erratic Cam Ward will be in net for the Hurricanes and he’s yet another player you could see heading out of town before the end of the trade season. The hope is that Eddie Lack will become more comfortable in the #1 role and that Ward can be dealt.
Really a pretty even matchup but we expect the debut of Jones to produce an energetic effort from the entire team. We’ll take the Jackets.
BET COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS +120 OVER CAROLINA HURRICANES